Exodus: The Orion War

by Kali Altsoba

  “All escorts! Weapons Stations alert: twelve bandits in your three-twenty. Cruisers and a screen of ‘Zs.’ Confirmed: four cruisers, eight Zerstörers at 20,000 klics and 320˚ and closing fast.”

  Émile moves quickly to confirm the initial sighting from his stand-up station at the Binnacle, although there’s no mistaking what’s nakedly visible overhead in the Main Scuttle.

  “Here they come! Twelve warships in double-drop formation. Heading right at us, now at 17,000 klics high and 22,000 on flank. Intercept speed and course. Three minutes to contact.”

  Magda leans forward in her hard, black command chair.

  “All hands! Weapons and Engine Rooms make ready. All ready, all ships. Got to battle stations! Prepare to engage your enemy.”

  ***

  Magda and Émile carefully studied Kaigun tactics when planning the Alpha mission. They worked bent over a holo map table moved into her cabin while repair work clanged! and banged!, as scored external armor was replaced and hundreds of raw bunks were added below.

  They agreed the patrol daisa will most likely come right at Alpha on a bluntly direct, no nonsense intercept course. After they finished mapping out the Zulu maneuver, Magda said that timing on the next phase wasn’t the only thing to worry about, it was everything.

  “It’s our one chance. If their daisa goes by the book —and what else has he in hand to turn to so early in this new war?— he’ll time his intersect to our ascending flotilla by vectoring to what he’ll conservatively calculate will be our slowest and hence most vulnerable moment.”

  “As we reach for gravity escape, before he thinks we’ll turn and fusion-boost out of the orbital plane? Yes ma’am, I see that. It means that after we make Zulu we’ll still be catchable.”

  “Only if we are where he expects us to be when he expects us to be there.”

  “So we have to turn sharp and early, when he’s not expecting it. Where? At a rise point where we can still boost away from Genève and put real distance between us and any pursuit.”

  “I’ll settle for just enough space to stay out of range of any seeker-missiles and forward lasers on the chase ships that will tear after us, however many and whatever type they are.”

  “Hmmm. If I was that daisa I’d trap your king with a spread of pawns: a picket line of Zerstörers or frigates to counter the best probabilities of where you’ll make your turn to run.”

  “Agreed. But that means he must split his forces. And remember, his warships must avoid the white plasma streams coming up from Toruń, as long as the guns down here last. There’s great danger for Alpha in a division of his forces, but maybe real opportunity as well.”

  “If we cleave tight to the plasma streams for as long as we can, we should be able to take advantage of that deterrent to his picket ship position. Then twist hard and burn away.”

  “Why Mr. Fontaine, I do believe you exhibit some talent for mayhem and deceit! And perhaps also naval tactics. Right, show me on the simulation exactly what you’re thinking.”

  ‘Some talent? We wouldn’t have survived the fight at Genève’s moons and be alive in Toruń today if he wasn’t the most exceptional tactical mind I have ever encountered.’

  Both bent low over the holo, running and rerunning simulations all night. Blue and green and red lights flickered over their faces. Had anyone been watching, they would have seen the little colored lights reveal how intensely dedicated Émile Fontaine is to his captain, and how the heavy burden of command is etching premature worry lines in Magda Aklyan’s handsome face.

  ***

  Now the moment is here and Magda and Émile count on their opponent thinking Alpha can only move at the speed of its slowest ships, which must look to him exactly like what they are, or rather what they were a month ago: unarmed tourist ships incapable of military speeds.

  They’ll show up on his tracking gear, from false IFF signals that Alpha is broadcasting in the clear, still identified as two Grün tourist liners owned by the Royal Cruising Line. He’ll also see codes for three light cruisers and four heavy destroyers flying as escort. It’s a double deceit, about the speed of the slowest ships in her flotilla and about the firepower of the rest.

  ‘It might buy us a few seconds hesitation as he confirms. If he knew what we really are, just old destroyers and frigates and two overloaded cruise ships, he might fall out of Genève’s sky with laughter. Well, here’s to the mirth of rats-bane, wag-tail, dull-witted Kaigun captains!’

  Bearing direct for Alpha is a formation flag-shipped by an older heavy cruiser, three much more modern-looking light cruisers, and a detached forward screen of eight mixed-age and mixed-class Kaigun Zerstörers, a ship type roughly equivalent to a Krevan destroyer. The good news is they’re all coming over and down at a wide oblique angle to Alpha’s actual rise and course, obviously expecting it to be in an optimal or normal escape trajectory. But Alpha’s not on a normal trajectory and not making standard lift speed.

  “Hold this course to my mark. Main engines, all ahead. Battle speed!”

  Magda notes that the eight Zerstörers aren’t in regular formation with the four slower cruisers, but also aren’t trying to close with Alpha separately from the bigger warships. They’re flying a detached escort pattern, not making a discrete and hard interception run down to Alpha.

  “Mr. Fontaine, did we just get real lucky? Am I right that those Zs are not taking full advantage of their greater orbital height and native speed to pounce us?”

  “Confirmed. They’re below max on both. They’re holding back in a soft escort role.”

  The eight Zs are merely pacing 3,000 klics ahead of the four cruisers in a lazy and slightly ragged crescent, their traditionalist and less-senior daisas obviously ordered to stick to their official task of screening capital ships. The cruisers will take the kill shots, not the escorts.

  “The flotilla daisa is putting all trust in his cruisers, in his massive firepower advantage when he should cut loose his Zs. Well, let’s see if we can’t overmatch him with our speed.”

  ‘They’re cocky, conservative, traditional. Going by the peacetime book. On standard course and vector. As I hoped, they lifted their tactics right out of the Kaigun prewar manual.’

  She knows because she read it. Five times.

  The daisa commanding from the flagship, heavy cruiser KG Magni, is overconfident. He believes the firepower he controls from his four cruisers will vaporize anything trying to rise past him from the surface. He’s amused more than annoyed that his IFF gear gave him initial false info, but now that the electronic ruse is exposed and visuals are also available he can see that he is vastly stronger than his puny enemy.

  The idea of seven small escorts and a couple of waddling liners straining upward only reinforces his arrogant freedom from any doubt in himself, or the capabilities of his twelve-ship squadron and superior relative position. So he follows a Zerstörer screen he doesn’t need with his four cruisers. It’s an unimaginative line ahead formation that drops the cruisers slowly into the main intercept role while the eight Zerstörers fly a soft combat patrol above and high. He’s moving all 12 ships too slowly, almost regally, at what Resolve tracks as less than half-speed.

  ‘He’s not thinking about relative speed. He’s thinking only about massed firepower and his shooting advantage from the superior position.’

  Magda calls out orders in a steady stream and preternaturally calm voice. No one else speaks except Émile Fontaine, advising when each command is fulfilled. Every officer and each sailor is at battle stations on nine desperate little ships. They merge as real not virtual extensions of her single, streaming command will. Magda is zen to Resolve and the whole flotilla, melded into the engines and missiles and will to live of the crews. Magda is Resolve. She is Alpha.

  “Maintain secondary thrusters.”

  “Thrusters aye.”

  “Ready forward missile tubes.”

  “Tubes aye.”

  “Arm the torpedoes.”

  �
��Armed.”

  “Turn hard to port 15˚ on my mark ... Mark!”

  “Turning.”

  Directions in space are an artificial, human convention, yet necessary to communicate relative position in a trade convoy. Or when docking at an elevator. Or maneuvering warships in formation. In space navigation “up” is therefore no more than an agreed position relative to the stellar equator, itself an arbitrary predetermination. Once base orientation is agreed, other terms follow naturally: “down,” “port,” “starboard,” “right” and “left” ascension and declination. The latter work rather like longitude and latitude in simple navigation on the surface of any planet.

  So everyone understands based on preset horizons exactly what the Kaigun-daisa means when he directs his 12 ships to maintain course and formation on a long preset heading to take his whole squadron, moving in two parts, “down and starboard” to where he expects the rising ships to arrive in under two minutes. That’s assuming standard acceleration and angle of ascent.

  However, Captain Aklyan is now angling her nine ships toward the enemy squadron rather than trying to run away from the orbital patrol as every Kaigun daisa high above her and dropping expects. Moreover, she’s making faster closing speed and moving at greater overall velocity than a normal or even a minimally safe ground launch would attempt. That’s the effect the discarded metallic-hydrogen boosts imparted to Alpha. And of the last jig maneuver.

  Actually, there’s nothing standard or safe or normal about anything she’s doing. If she followed standard KRN launch protocols as her opponent expects she will, because he would, Alpha would be struggling like nine naïve minnows swept into the Kaigun’s commodious net.

  She knew it would be a fool’s errand to follow procedure yet hope to escape a far more powerful foe. And Magda Aklyan is no one’s fool, even if this is her first flotilla and combat command. Except for a single forced command after the sharp fight at the Genève moons, when there was no left alive senior to her and she brought the last warships home to safety at Toruń. Seven small escorts that could not get out with the last fleeing and damaged capital ships. Seven escorts now trying to escape on their own, along with the troopships, to keep hate alive in exile.

  The effect of a boosted-launch and sudden top-twist-to-port she orders Alpha to make, just before reaching escape velocity, is that eight startled Zerstörers shoot over top and past the now hard-turning, hard-angling, and weirdest of all, hard-charging Krevan flotilla.

  Naval war is supposed to be a more sedate affair than this. At least, that’s what Émile Fontaine’s ancient and even modern history texts say, as do all the old KRN logs from the last Orion War. No one alive really knows, since no one has done this sort of thing in a long time. Not really. Except for quarterly squadron and annual fleet simulations and war games.

  The real thing is faster and more dynamic than any virtual simulation you can ever sit through. More confusing and harder than any peacetime war game with real ships, all friendly and shooting only lasers at 1% power to send target disks on the ‘enemy’ hulls clanging! No matter how many times or levels you run them, simulations don’t shoot back. And when target ship weapons hit they don’t cut huge holes in your hull or knock vital pieces off your engines.

  The daisa above Genève is following an old playbook, too confident about his always winning record in prewar simulations. He’s bearing down on an inferior enemy force, certain that at proper firing ranges he can bring his heavier armaments to bear and batter his opponent into submission or oblivion. He hopes the fleeing ships don’t try to surrender. He wants to turn them into free-floating particle clouds that will seed the winter rains as they descend to Genève.

  Magda will make him pay for his conservatism and arrogance, but first she must distract and confuse him. She’ll leave it to safer and smarter people to figure out later what larger tactical point and unique innovation she’s making today. For Alpha, this fight is not about tactical lessons but desperation and survival. Not theory or tradition or reputation but real lives and blood. And maintaining hull integrity against the will of the enemy and vacuum of space.

  So, once again contrary to all received doctrine and tradition of her own navy, as well as the untroubled Kaigun-daisa above her, she does things far differently than her enemy expects. She attacks. She takes on a superior force, still trailing wispy atmosphere from her ships’ tails.

  “All warships, open forward missile doors.”

  “Tubes open, all escorts.”

  “Weapons Officers: ready systems and yourselves. Shoot-and-dodge.”

  “Weapons primed.”

  “Target the cruisers. Tell the AIs to concentrate on engines and nav arrays.”

  “Messaging target priorities.”

  “Tell them to let the ‘Z’s go, for now. They’ll be back.”

  “AI target priority set.”

  “Navigation officer, Resolve only. Track the Zs and report position every 20 seconds.”

  The enemy Zerstörers have taken themselves out of range with their first failed pass, and are now frantically braking to stop their overshoot of Alpha’s unexpected position. The two lead escorts are trying to do so without scudding along the upper stratosphere, closing fast below.

  “All ships: ready plasma torpedoes.”

  “Fish are in the tubes.”

  “Arm missiles. Fire-and-forget.”

  “Missiles are ready, aye ready.”

  “Set firing pattern flanker.”

  “Firing pattern flanker set.”

  “Confirm spread.”

  “Shooting two-by-two, confirmed.”

  “Confirm timing.”

  “Shooting at three second intervals, off your mark.”

  As she readies to give the shoot command the lasts wisps of air fall behind. Alpha is out of the envelope. Blackness is above the nine and all around, salted with the light of distant stars.

  “Mark!”

  “Firing.”

  “Two fish are in the water.”

  Resolve whisks two stubby missiles with immaculate ease along the metallic-hydrogen magnets of its forward rail-catapults. White-hot plasma exhausts blaze from internal drives once the torpedoes leave the shooting tubes.

  “Four fish are in the water.”

  “Six fish are in the water.”

  The other six warships loose a staggered sequence timed to Resolve’s lead shots and Magda’s mark. In seconds, 14 brilliant lights shoot away from Alpha on high-speed intersect paths, reaching out to the fast-approaching cruiser line.

  Four are metal-housed, cigar-shaped warheads launched from maglevs on the older frigates. Their long design is all about fitting down the maglev firing tubes, for there’s no aerodynamic imperative in the vacuum of space.

  The rest are stubbier, like barrels with fins and nozzles and a clear AI bubble up front. Not sleek or streamlined or beautiful at all. It’s more important that they’re super-light, layered-graphene and AI-guided plasma bombs of supreme lethality to any ship they get even close to.

  They’re ejected by catapults along carbon-tube rails using supercompressed steam for initial interior propulsion. Leaving white afterbirth behind, they turn on their own short-burst plasma engines at a safe distance from their mother ship. Miniaturized fusion drives kick in as AIs stagger velocity and evasive weaving to confuse tracking systems on the enemy cruisers.

  Each hurtling torpedo is a compact tokamak chamber made of toroidal magnetic coils, hosting within a grapefruit-size sphere of plasma reaching nearly 150 million degrees Celsius. That exceeds temperatures achieved by natural plasma plumes in magnetic fields on the surface of an average star. Even near-misses can do copious harm if any plasma ejecta contacts the hull.

  “Alpha, missiles are away. Time to dodge and run.”

  “Aye captain, all controls synced to the Nav Station on Resolve.”

  “Jig on my order.”

  “Waiting on the order, ma’am.”

  “Hard to port, 30˚ ... Ma
rk!”

  “All ships: hard turn to port 30˚ aye now aye.”

  “Let’s get out of here, Mr. Fontaine.”

  “Confirm ready: all ships to system boost.”

  “Type-3 boosts and main engines are online.”

  “Confirm heading.”

  “Heading confirmed, captain. We’re going to Wasp’s farside LP.”

  “All ships: fire main boosters on my mark ... Mark!”

  “All ships, maximum boost.”

  “Engines are engaged, captain.”